Welcome to the next chapter of TTIGRIMHA! And yes, I'm shortening it down to that because holy shit is that a mouthful! The first thing to note is that (as of writing this) on Fanfiction Dot Net alone, we've reached 40 favourites, and 41 followers! For a story that's only a day old that kind of growth is insane! At least, for me, anyway. On Wattpad, we've hit 41 views in total—which might not seem like much, but in comparison to most sites, and with how broken that site's algorithm is, it's actually kind of impressive. On Ao3, we've reached 10 kudos, and 1 bookmark! On Qoutev… well, it's only got 5 views and 3 separate readers, with 1 heart. Yeah, kind of a bummer for that. I have no idea why that is, maybe it's because I tagged something incorrectly.
Either way, that's not what matters! Now, how about we jump into my response to some comments, and then, we'll jump into the chapter!
[Response to Reviews/Comments]
(Qoutev) Shine375: Just finished season 1 and am going to start season 2 once I finish writing this chapter. I honestly went in thinking I'd hate it, but I was surprised! Honestly, the internet does this show dirty dude. With all these negative reviews, I could've sworn it was something like SAO, but BOY am I glad I was wrong. People just don't know art when they see it, I guess.
(Ao3) Notchbrine: Tanner only knows up to Kamino Ward. He knows nothing about anything beyond that. Which makes this more… interesting.
Dregus: Tis one of the many bonuses of starting the story off before Canon is even a thing. It allows me to do some things that would otherwise be impossible to do if we started say, a few months before canon. Like, for example, a Chisaki that isn't coo-coo for cocoa puffs.
For'Sleep 3rd: I mean, the only Yakuza game I've played is Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and I didn't even get past the first boss lmao. So I have no idea who Ryuu is.
Jowen2713: Truck-kun is an actual menace to society. Man needs to be stopped.
Anyway, with that one out of the way….
[-This Chapter was brought to you by BLACK MEMORY by THE ORAL CIGARETTES-]
[-Ch. 2: Knowledge is Power-]
Atsushi was violently tossed to the ground, landing on the grassy terrain on his elbow, as he winced, tears threatening to poke through the sides of his eyes, as he whimpered, looking up at the person who had shoved him to the ground.
"Hey, Tamagotori-kun! Let's play Heroes versus Villains!" A boy with horns growing out from the sides of his head, wearing a blue and red striped shirt and brown cargo shorts, declared as the timid boy recoiled out of reflex. The boy with horns was named Tagiru Tatsumiki, and his Quirk was called Bullrush. It gave him the physical strength of a bull, along with a pair of horns similar to that of a bull.
And, he was Atsushi's number-one bully.
"Yeah! And he can be the villain!" A girl next to Tagiru named Natsuki Katsukage said with a smirk on her face as she looked down at Atsushi. She had bright pink hair, and what appeared to be claws on the ends of her fingers. Her Quirk, from what Atsushi remembered, was called Cat Scratch. She was wearing a black body dress and grey stockings. She was someone who Atsushi had a small crush on because she was cute. But, she was also one of Atsushi's bullies, so that crush didn't exactly last for long.
Then there was Harusuke Katsukabe, not to be confused with Natsuki Katsukage. They weren't related, even if their names were extremely similar. Harusuke was Tagiru's best friend, and yet again, one of Atsushi's major bullies. He was wearing a tank top and a pair of black pants. He had dark blue hair, and his Quirk was Hydrokinesis.
Then, there was Atsushi. His Quirk was similar to Harusuke's. His was Pyrokinesis. He could manipulate and control fire that he generated from his fingertips, much like Endeavour!
Who was the same person who had defeated and killed his father, who had been labelled a villain for stealing food to provide for Atsushi and his slowly dying mother. His mother had put him in this orphanage because she couldn't take care of him due to her slowly dying, and inability to get out of bed every morning.
His father had done nothing wrong. All he did was try and steal some food! Sure, he threatened the cashier, but did that suddenly warrant him being burned alive by Endeavour?
No! No, it didn't!
But that didn't matter. That mean news lady had made his father out to be a monster who attacked and injured civilians! But that was Endeavour's fault! All his father had been doing was trying to protect Atsushi from Endeavour's reckless fire attacks! It was Endeavour who hurt those civilians! Not his father! His father only had a weak fire control Quirk!
But yet again, that didn't matter.
To make things worse, his bullies would try and replicate what happened on tv. How the news described what happened to his dad. They'd use Harusuke's water in place of fire, the scratches from the rubble coming from Natsuki, and the pain with Tagiru's Bullrush.
They'd always disguise it as them playing "heroes versus villains," which would get them out of trouble for needlessly hurting him.
And they were about to do it again, when suddenly….
"Oi!" Atsushi looked over to the entrance to the orphanage's playground to see… Tanner walking towards them. When he got to them, he stood in front of the group of three with his arms stretched out in a fence-like stance, as he stared them down as if they were the villains—which they were! "What the hell are you doing ganging up on him like that? Can't you see he doesn't want to play right now? Back off!"
"Eh, who the hell are you?" Tagiru asked, raising an eyebrow as Natsuki spoke up.
"Oh, he's the kid who didn't know about Atsushi's daddy being a villain!" Natsuki replied.
"Ah, so you're the new kid?" Harusuke said through a smirk. "Does that mean you want to play to—"
He was cut off when… Tanner kicked him in the no-no square. Harusuke's eyes widened, as he gasped, before falling onto the floor, squirming on the floor in pain. Tagiru and Natsuki paled after seeing that, as Tanner glared at them from the corner of his eye.
"I said to back off. So that means you back off. Got it?" Tanner replied, an intimidating aura washing off of him as Tagiru stared at him, tears welling up in the corner of his eyes, before running away.
"VILLAIN! YOU'RE A NASTY VILLAIN!" Tagiru cried out as he ran away, leaving Natsuki all by herself. Tanner stepped up to her, staring her dead in the eyes. The pink-haired girl tensed, as Tanner huffed, crossing his arms.
"I don't hit girls, so I'm only going to say this once. Leave Atsushi alone. Got it? If you bug him again, I'm gonna punch you, m'kay?" Tanner stated as Natsuki nodded, before running off, but not before dragging Harusuke with her. Once all the mean kids were gone, Tanner looked over to Atsushi, walking up to him. Atsushi looked away with a fleeting amount of embarrassment rushing through his head. Not only had the new kid come over to defend him, but he had done so twice!
There was no way this was just a coincidence! He had to have some sort of ulterior motive! Everyone who had stepped up to help him only did so to bully him afterward! It was the same when Tagiru became his "friend" only to torment him later!
"Hey, are you okay?" Tanner asked as Atsushi looked away, not looking him in the eyes. He wasn't going to fall for this trick again. He refused to allow it! And so, without even so much as giving him a thank you for going out of his way to help him, Atsushi ran off, keeping to himself despite all the confused stares from the other kids, and leaving a confused, and slightly annoyed Tanner.
He didn't want to be bullied again. He just wanted to be left alone!
And so, Atsushi ran away, heading to his bed so that he could be left alone.
xxXXxxXXxx
To say Tanner was confused was a bit of an understatement. He had just come back from a meeting with Ms. Tadakami about… his situation… and he had decided after the fact that he was going to hang out with Atsushi. Maybe he could even be friends with the boy! He seemed to lack those, and besides, having friends in a new world sounded like a really good idea.
When he got outside with the other kids, as pointed out to him by one of the older kids in the orphanage, some kid by the name of Kenji Hikiishi, a boy with brown hair that went down to his ears, a pair of black eyes, and wearing a black shirt with a knee-length skirt of all things. For a split second, he considered that maybe he was actually a she, and the more he looked at them(?), the more they(?) reminded him of one of the members of The League of Villains, just way younger.
Moving on from that, when he finally got outside, he was shocked—and appalled—at what he saw. And what he saw was that a few kids were picking on Atsushi, and he had just watched one of them, a boy with bull horns on each side of his head, shove him to the ground in a non-playful manner, before the group of three; a pink-haired girl, a boy with dark blue hair, and the aforementioned bull horn kid, all looming over him as if they were about to beat him up.
No one had seen this happen, of course. Aside from him, that was. And seeing as he had his own previous run-ins with bullying, there was no way he was going to let that slide. So, he confronted them, and after he dealt with them, he planned on asking Atsushi if he was okay and then hanging out with him until Chisaki got to get him to meet the person he wanted him to meet.
But then, after he had asked Atsushi, the boy just… ran away.
It was a little annoying to have that happen, and he didn't know what he had done wrong, but he wasn't going to pry. Maybe he had been a little too harsh on the guys bullying him. Maybe he thought he was going to beat him up next. Maybe he had done something to slight him somehow?
Honestly, Tanner didn't know, and he wasn't going to try and find out either. It was too early in the morning to deal with this crap. He was never good with little kids, despite what his mother would have people believe.
So, with his plan thwarted and his attention now back on himself, he quickly found something else to do. And that "something else" was laying on the ground in front of him. That being a pencil that Atsushi had seemingly let fall out of his pocket.
"Maybe I should give it back to him…." Tanner thought as he picked up the writing instrument. It was your standard blue pencil, a little dull from use, but overall still usable. Well, It was a little banged up, and chewed on—gross—but then again what else was he going to expect from a child Atsushi's age? Hell, when he was younger, he used to chew on pencils, and sometimes even pen caps. He blamed his early anxiety for that little former trait of his, but it was whatever.
Tanner hummed, trying to find Atsushi in the crowd of kids playing. Scanning the area, he sighed, finding nothing. The boy fully disappeared and had gone elsewhere, and Tanner wasn't planning on tracking him down just to give him back a pencil. Although, he was a little curious as to where the boy could've run off to, seeing as he had no idea what other places there could be in this dingy building. "Maybe he just ran off to the sleeping hall?" Tanner mumbled to himself, before looking at the pencil.
Then, he got an idea.
It was just a pencil, and… well, he kinda wanted to try out [Devour]. It wasn't as if Atsushi was going to flip out if he had lost a chewed-on pencil, right? That, and he wanted to see what he'd get from a small object like this—seeing as he could only use [Devour] on smaller objects, he assumed up to book size, he decided "why not".
And so, as he held the pencil in his hand, clenching it tight in his palms, he whispered the command to activate his skill, as the dark energy of [Devour] surrounded his hand. Out of the dark energy came a set of jaws that chomped down on his hand, bypassing his hand and devouring the pencil. Once the deed had been done, [Analysis] activated immediately afterward.
[-Analysis of STANDARD WRITING PENCIL beginning…. Analysis complete. Through the use of Analysis, the Skills: Lead Claws and Wood Manipulation have been created-]
[-New Skill: Lead Claws – through activation, your nails will grow into claws made of highly condensed and sharpened Lead-]
[New Skill: Wood Manipulation – You can manipulate any wood you touch, no matter where it originates from-]
Tanner looked at his balled-up hand, before opening it, and seeing that the pencil was gone. He looked at his other hand, before activating [Lead Claws]. When he did, just as the Skill described, his fingernails grew a few inches and turned into razor-sharp claws made out of lead. Tanner stared down at his hand, smiling, as he deactivated [Lead Claws], his hand turning back to normal.
Considering no one said anything about the creepy-looking dark energy that had surrounded his hand, he assumed that no one had seen him use his [Devour] skill. Which, was good. That, and only Ms. Tadakami and Chisaki knew about his "Quirk". So it wasn't as if he had to worry about accidentally revealing his "Quirk" to everyone else.
As he looked around the orphanage playground, he spotted and walked over to a lonely little tree, before placing his palm against it so that he could test out his [Wood Manipulation]. That was when he noticed what kind of tree it was. The tree in question was an apple tree, which gave him an idea. The bright red delicious fruit taunted him from above, but he had a way to get at them. He looked over to a few people nearby, who were looking at him from a distance.
His idea then expanded into something else. Not only would he be able to at least give himself the reputation of a good person, but he'd also be feeding the people he had just looked at with a sweet treat! Well, sweet in the sense of it not being candy, but whatever. That didn't matter.
"Hey, you three!" Tanner called out, as the children who had been staring at him looked at one another, until one of them, a white-haired girl with orange eyes, pointed at herself. "Yeah, you guys! C'mere!"
As he called out to the group of three, consisting of the aforementioned white-haired girl, a boy with a horse head, and another girl with tentacles for hair, approached him. Without saying a word, he activated his [Wood Manipulation] skill and manipulated the branches of the tree to lower to their reaching height, revealing there to be four apples on the branch. "Want an apple?" Tanner asked as the kid's eyes widened with delight.
Each of them took an apple, and thanked Tanner, before running off back to what they were doing, as Tanner removed his hand from the tree, and deactivated his new skill, but not before taking an apple himself.
Chomping into the fruit, Tanner thought to himself. "If a mere pencil gave me these two skills… then just what else could I gain from the world around me?" The blond-haired boy thought as he bit into the apple for a second time. Sitting down against the tree, Tanner ate in peace, as he rested his head against the tree trunk behind him.
He wondered what his parents were doing now. What his sister was doing? What were his friends doing? Were they all grieving for him, just as how he was grieving his losses? He hoped they cremated him. He didn't want his body to rot in the dirt and be festering with worms and any other creepy crawly that would make corpses their home.
Tanner sighed, biting into his apple again. He'd never know for sure. What he did know, however, was that this new life was going to be exciting. Even if he did miss his family. Even if he missed his friends. He was going to push on, and thrive just as how his mother and father would've wanted him to.
He wasn't going to sit around and mope about just because he had lost everything. He was going to rebuild his life from the ground up. He was going to become the man that his parents wanted him to be.
A successful man.
And he was going to do so by any means necessary.
And seeing as he was in the world of My Hero Academia, with real honest to god heroes and villains, he wondered what his role in this world would be. The idea of being a hero crossed his mind for a fleeting moment, but then he thought about things like The Hero Killer—if he was even a thing at this point, seeing as he was way, way into the past of this world, considering Shoto Todoroki's sister looked way younger then he was.
Or maybe his sister was just younger than him.
Honestly, Tanner didn't care all that much about other families and the like. All he cared about was living this new life he had to the best of his abilities. Exhaling, he looked up to the bright morning sky, as Tanner frowned. The sun was covered by some clouds, which was good—he didn't want to damage his eyesight, now did he?
The crisp morning air filled his lungs as he enjoyed sitting around, minding his own business. Before long, they were all called back indoors by another staff member and ushered into the building with an alarming speed. Tanner was confused as to why that was happening, but the confusion quickly disappeared when he heard an explosion down the road.
"W-What's happening Tsumachi-san?" One of the kids asked as the aforementioned male attendant replied.
"A villain attack is going on down the street. Everyone in the immediate area was asked to get indoors, so we'll be staying inside for the rest of the day. All adoption plans have been cancelled, so if you were all excited to potentially get new parents, today is not the day."
Tanner sucked in a deep breath, watching as the life that was in everyone's eyes drained away immediately. The look of despair and defeat hurt Tanner in a way that he now understood. Before, he could have brushed it off as crappy, but now he understood what it was like to not have a family.
The only difference between him and them is that they had to deal with that idea for far longer than he had. Some of the kids looked like they were in their pre-teens, so God knew how many years they had been couped up in this place without a person to call "mom" or "dad".
It must've sucked.
Suddenly, he felt a hand clasp down on his shoulder. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a familiar black shirt, and then, when he looked up, he saw Chisaki. The boy looked down at him, but his eyes had been closed, and his forehead was wrinkled with frustration. He had no idea why Chisaki was frustrated. Maybe it had something to do with the aforementioned plans being cancelled.
Well, Chisaki had mentioned he wanted him to meet someone. It was only reasonable to assume that that was the case.
And so, for the rest of the day, everyone was forced to stay inside, and also for the rest of the day, Chisaki had decided to care for him specifically, even though he had planned to go home early, he had decided against it, even going as far as to call his guardian and telling him that he'd be home late.
And thus, the day got more interesting.
For the rest of the morning, Chisaki had asked him questions about himself. What were his likes, what were his dislikes, basic stuff like that. He answered them as basic as possible. Not because he was trying to fool Chisaki, but because he just didn't feel like explaining too much. He told Chisaki that he liked video games and that he disliked schoolwork.
Funnily enough, Chisaki and he had a thing in common. The golden-eyed boy, for as professional as he had appeared to be, liked to play games too, though more of the traditional kind, like shogi. He said that once he was older, he'd show him it to see if he'd like it.
The other questions pertained to his personal life, and those had stung. The questions were basic, only stuff a kid could answer—thank God for that—and those basically chalked up to who his family had been, and where he was born.
He… lied through his teeth. He told Chisaki that he had been born in Japan because his parents had moved there and that his family had died in a tragic accident, i.e. a car crash, and that he was left to wander the streets because all of his family was back home in America.
Chisaki believed it wholeheartedly and even felt bad for him. Tanner felt bad for lying, but he wasn't about to tell him that he was actually a 15-year-old kid who had been isekai'd from another world. That would've been completely unbelievable. So he went with the basic tragic anime protagonist backstory.
Eh, it was standard anime fare. He wasn't going to push it, because that would just make him sound stupid.
Lunchtime came around, and for lunch was a bowl of piping hot soup that, by appearance alone, kinda looked like sewage. He was kind of disgusted by the look and refused to eat it. Chisaki had urged him to try it, saying it was good for him, and after a few times of refusing, Chisaki seemingly got sick of his nonsense and force-fed him some of it.
Needless to say, it was really fucking good, and he kind of felt bad for knocking it before trying it. It was apparently called Miso Soup, and it was typically a breakfast food, but they had it for lunch instead because today was pancake Sunday. Chisaki had told him that supper was typically sushi of a few varieties, primarily Maki Sushi, Nirigiri Sushi, and Oshizushi.
He had no idea what Sushi would taste like, so he was a little worried.
But, that was for later tonight. Right now, it was the middle of the afternoon, somewhere around 1:30 PM, and Chisaki had taken him to the small library, placing a few books in front of him, all of them being study related.
"Now, if there was one thing that my gramps taught me, it was that studying and getting prepared for school is for the best. Now, I'm on a tutoring program, so I don't have to go to public school. However, you will have to go to public school. Seeing as you're a bit more mature than most of the other kids, I think it would be best if you started studying now."
As Chisaki said that, he placed a book about basic math in front of him. Tanner felt a little insulted, but then again, it wasn't as if the boy in front of him knew he already knew all of the material in there.
"This is gonna suck. I wish [Devour] would help me learn things too…." Tanner thought as the robotic voice cropped up into the back of his head.
[-Response: If you use [Devour] on that book, and then use [Analysis], you will instantly learn everything in that book, as it will be transported to your brain as knowledge that you can use in the future-]
Tanner blinked, silently thanking the voice for the information, before placing a hand on the book's cover. Chisaki looked at him quizzically, as a smirk took over the blond's face. "Devour."
As soon as Tanner said that, the book was enveloped by his skill, the maws of the dark shadowy apparition warping over the book and clamping shut over it, before the shadow stuff disappeared, and for the book to be gone, and just like the last time, [Analysis] activated immediately after [Devour] had finished.
[-Analysis of "MATHEMATICS GRADES K – 7" beginning…. Analysis Complete. Knowledge has been transferred directly to your brain-]
Tanner smirked. At least now he didn't have to study thanks to [Devour] and [Analysis]. He could just buy any sort of guide, use [Devour] on it, have [Analysis] analyze it, and boom, he'd know how to do it! Not that he didn't know how to do basic math, but this did teach him how Japanese students did it.
However, Chisaki was not privy to this knowledge and looked as if he was about to blow a gasket.
"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO, YOU DAMNED BRAT?!" Chisaki raged, staring at him as if he committed an obscene offence against all of humanity, eyes wide and cheeks flaring red with anger. Before he could continue his rant, Tanner raised a finger, snagged a piece of paper, grabbed a pen, and put it in front of Chisaki.
"Write the hardest question you can from that book from memory, and watch."
Chisaki blinked at Tanner, still angry at what he had done, but did so anyway. Once he was done, Tanner proceeded to solve the question, and in the proper way too. When Chisaki looked it over to make sure it was right, his anger had switched to amusement, as his eyes lit up like traffic lights.
"Hemmingway…. Your Quirk is… it's outrageous," Chisaki blurted out, looking at the boy as the blond shrugged, a smug smirk on his face.
"I wouldn't say… that. It's just convenient. My parents took advantage of it and had me devour more adult books and dictionaries and all that stuff so that I had an advantage when it came to school. They never thought about that, though, me devouring math books to get ahead of the system entirely," Tanner "explained" as he lied to Chisaki about the nature of his past.
That, and he had already known all of the stuff in that book to begin with, just not how the Japanese school system taught it. So, in a way, he did learn something from it, like how Japanese students did arithmetic.
Like, seriously, that was super fucking weird. At least, in his opinion anyway.
Chisaki, on the other hand, was going into a full-blown theorizing mode, as he cupped his chin in thought. "I don't think you get it…. Kid, you could revolutionize the world with a Quirk that strong! You could make modern medicine look like a joke! You could invent things that we weren't on track to invent for hundreds of years now! You could be a literal genius! Given the right environment, of course…." Chisaki said, reverting to a mumbling state as he sat down across from Tanner, his eyebrows scrunched together in thought.
"Holy shit, this guy's just like Midoriya with his muttering… I… I don't think I should stop him, though…." Tanner thought as he watched the black-haired teen mumble away, vaguely making out his assumptions as to how [Devour] and [Analysis] worked, and if they had limits or not.
"Actually, hey… uh, first of all, do you have a name, and second of all, do [Devour] and [Analysis] have like a storage limit? That would be really handy to know in the future."
[-Question Acknowledged, delivering answer: No, I do not have a name. You can give me one, should you choose to do so. And, no. [Devour] and [Analysis] do not have any storage capacity. They only have limits in terms of your usage of them, and, your body's physical capabilities, as previously stated. So, no, you have no limit as to what you can use [Devour] on. Theoretically speaking, you could use [Devour] to destroy whole solar systems, should you ever get that powerful. Though that is likely to not happen-]
Tanner's mouth went agape at the sudden information that the voice in his head told him. He knew that the latter half of the sentence was possible, seeing as Rimeru was considered one of the most, if not the most powerful character in fiction thanks to his predator ability and his other skills gained through that. And while he knew he'd never be able to reach those levels of power—or perhaps he could depending on what he did, who knows—what he was worried about was having a limit because he was a human.
But seeing as this thing confirmed to him that he didn't have a limit…
"Holy shit… That changes everything…." Tanner shook his head. "No, think about that later. Besides, I'm still too weak physically to do much of anything. I'm still human, so I can't just jump into the bullshit right away. As much as it pains me to wait, I'll just have to until my body is strong enough to begin working out. After that… I'll be unstoppable."
Once his thoughts ended, he looked over to Chisaki, who was now writing down notes on his hypothesis. And, if that didn't cement him as acting like Midoriya, then he didn't know what did.
Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to last.
The door to the small library opened, and one of the older workers walked into the room. They were your typical black-haired black-eyed man, though he had what appeared to be bumps in his skin for whatever reason.
The man looked at Chisaki, who had closed his notebook, and turned to look at the worker. "Oi, Chisaki-kun. Your gramps is here to pick you up," the older man said, as he looked over to Tanner, and frowned. "And you can't be in here without supervision, and I'm not watching over you. Go find something else to do."
And with that, both of them left the room, Chisaki to go home with his notebook in hand, and Tanner to go find something else to do.
As he would later find out, The Orphanage had nothing to do aside from going outside and playing with toys. Both things he was not willing to do.
[-Later that night-]
Tanner sat on his bed, reading a book that he had asked one of the older kids to get for him, that being the Japanese translation of the book "Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief" a book series he had been interested in reading for a while now.
A couple of the kids "his age" were shocked that he could read "such a mature book all by himself." Tanner waved it off as him just having more reading skills than most of them, which annoyed a few of them but inspired some to get to his reading level. Which… considering he was bored out of his mind and wanted nothing to do with the younger folk, and considering none of the older kids wanted to hang out with him seeing as he was a "little kid" himself, Tanner resorted to excluding himself from most other peoples doings.
That had been why he had been reading instead of playing with the toys the other kids were playing with in the playroom on the second floor.
A few of the adults that had maintained the place saw it as weird that a kid his age was reading a book meant for older kids, none moreso than Ms. Tadakami herself, who was currently making the beds around him.
"Are you sure you can understand what you're reading, Hemmingway?" Tadakami asked as Tanner sent her a passing glance.
"Are you judging my reading skills? Or did you not read Chisaki-kun's report about my Quirk?" Tanner replied in question as Tadakami frowned, finishing making the bed next to his own. She harumphed at the boy, clearly unamused with his sass, not that Tanner cared all too much about her opinion.
"You're quite rude, you know? For a boy supposedly more mature than all the other kids, you sure do act like a brat. Why don't you at least try to make friends?" Tadakami asked, her question genuine as Tanner sighed, closing his book and leaving it at the end of his feet. He wanted to reply with "because I don't want to associate with booger eaters" but that sounded too mean.
So, he went with a different approach.
"Because I don't feel like I belong," Tanner replied, leaning against the singular pillow that he had propped up to act as a backrest. "It's… how do I put it…." Tanner hummed, trying to piece the words together in his head. "It's like… being someone with special needs, I guess. You're different from everyone else, and because you're different, everyone's gonna look at you funny. I don't pretend to not see the strange looks some of the other kids give me. It's mostly because I look foreign, despite having been born here." Tanner paused, closing his eyes. "It doesn't help that I'm on a much higher mental capacity than everyone else here. I feel like a teenager trapped in a little kid's body. I know I'm smarter than everyone else, but not in a cocky "I know more math than you" kind of smart. I mean, "I know the world more than you do, and your childish notions are annoying me," kind of smart."
Tanner looked over to Ms. Tadakami and sighed. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be rude here. I'm not trying to belittle everyone else—because I'm not. I'm saying that, at least to me, I don't feel like I belong. And all the older kids want nothing to do with me because I look like a little kid. The only one who seemingly wants to be friends with me is Chisaki-kun. And even then, he acts like an older brother than a friend."
And in reality, he was telling the truth. He felt out of place. He hadn't even been at the orphanage for a whole day, and he wanted to get out. He wanted to leave, to explore the wider world around him. To see just how different Japan was compared to America. To see what the future had in store! He wanted to live! Not be crammed up in this stupid little orphanage for the rest of his life!
Not to mention, he really was a teenager trapped in the body of a little kid. Like, he literally was. Not hypothetically, not metaphorically, not in any other way. Just… he was straight up a teenager in a little kid's body. He had more life experience than the kids around him, even if it was minuscule compared to an adult.
So, in a way, he technically wasn't lying. He was just telling a half-truth, and it goddamn sucked. "This fucking blows…" Tanner thought, sighing. "I'm… sorry for dumping all of that on you, Ms. Tadakami, I just needed to vent."
For her part, Ms. Tadakami was tapping her chin in thought, looking up at the ceiling now that she had been finished making the bed that was next to Hemmingway's, Satoshi's if she recalled, and after hearing what he had to say, the more she had looked at his behaviour throughout the day, it kind of made sense.
"Hmm… How about this," Ms. Tadakami started, looking at Tanner with a smile. "How about every day, at any time of your choosing that isn't past 6:30 PM, you can leave the building with a supervisor. You're free to go wherever you want, so long as you don't act up in public. And, if everything goes well, I'll see what I can do to get you your own private room on the third floor like all the older kids so that you have some sort of privacy. Okay?"
Tanner nodded, a smile forming on his face. "Thank you, Ms. Tadakami," the blond replied as the green-haired woman smiled back.
"Good. Now, it's almost 5:30, so it's time for dinner. Wait in the mess hall while I gather everyone else, alright?" Ms. Tadakami said, as Tanner hopped off of his bed, and made his way to the mess hall to eat dinner. As he left, Ms. Tadakami watched as he ran off, her expression filled with concern. The poor boy was an outcast, which was obvious. And… it reminded her of Kai when he used to live in the orphanage.
So when she heard that Kai was looking out for the boy, she couldn't help but smile. "I told you then, and I'll tell you this for the rest of your life, Kai… you're a good person at heart. You just let your nihilism overpower you sometimes. Hopefully, Tanner-kun over here will help you free yourself from that mindset."
And with that thought, Ms. Tadakami went to go fetch the rest of the children for dinner….
-To Be Continued-